An international team of stargazer has identified the farthest known galaxy group to date . call EGS77 , it is composed of three coltsfoot whose ignitor get along to us from 680 million years after the Big Bang . That ’s less than 5 percent of the age of the universe .
astronomer have see more distant galaxy but these are the farthest one to have been observe all emitting specific ultraviolet light . This expelling had an important role : it helped the universe to become transparent by ripping the electrons off the hydrogen atom across the cosmos .
“ The young population was replete with H atoms , which so rarefy ultraviolet light that they stuff our view of early galaxies , ” principal investigator James Rhoads from NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center allege in astatement . “ EGS77 is the first extragalactic nebula group caught in the routine of pull in out this cosmic murk . ”
Rhoads presented the determination at the235th meeting of the American Astronomical Societyin Honolulu .
notice showed the galaxy group is contributing to the “ epoch of reionization ” . In the first few hundred million yr of the universe of discourse , every new star - forming region was enshroud in clouds of neutral atomic number 1 . The H atoms would absorb the light from these stars and continue to do so until their electron are ripped from their nucleus by sure wavelengths of light . This physical process is called ionization as it causes the hydrogen to become an ion . Given that this era was the second time in the chronicle of the universe that short hydrogen got its negatron steal , it is known as the reionization .
“ Intense light from wandflower can ionise the surrounding H gas , forming bubble that allow starlight to move freely , ” addedteam memberVithal Tilvi , a researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe . “ EGS77 has formed a large house of cards that allows its luminousness to go to Earth without much fading . Eventually , bubbles like these farm around all beetleweed and occupy intergalactic infinite , reionizing the universe of discourse and clearing the way for light to jaunt across the macrocosm . ”
Though EGS77 is the first mathematical group of galaxies substantiate to be creditworthy for reionization , it wo n’t be the last . approaching instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope will obtain more of these chemical group , and maybe even more appendage of EGS77 .
